Baby boy decapitated during horror birth

A DOCTOR'S career is on the line after she caused a baby to be decapitated during a complicated delivery.

Dr Vaishnavy Laxman, a consultant gynaecologist, was working at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee, Scotland in March 2014 when the tragedy occurred.

The 41-year-old doctor is now facing a medical tribunal and risks being struck off the medical register over a series of poor decisions which led to the baby boy's horrific death.

The 30-year-old patient arrived at the hospital after her waters broke prematurely just 25 weeks into her first pregnancy.

The baby was found to have a prolapsed cord and was also in the breech position.

Despite those complications and the woman's cervix only being two to three centimetres dilated, Dr Laxman insisted on a vaginal delivery.

Dr Vaishnavy Laxman could be struck off the register. Picture: Cavendish Press

A medical tribunal heard the distressed pregnant woman was not given pain relief during the birth and her repeated pleas to medical staff to stop were ignored.

The child was decapitated when Dr Laxman told the patient to push while she pulled his legs at the same time, which caused the baby's body to detach, leaving the head inside the mother's womb.

The woman later had a C-section to remove the head, which was then "reattached" to the body so the grieving mother could hold her son and say goodbye.

Dr Laxman was suspended following the incident, and it has been claimed the patient was not even in established labour when her baby lost his life.

The traumatised woman addressed Dr Laxman directly at the tribunal, staring her down and repeating "I don't forgive you - I don't forgive you" while holding two teddy bears, The Independent reports.

She spoke of her confusion and fear during the delivery.

" ... when I was taken to the labour suite nobody told me what was happening. A lot of people were talking, they kept saying the baby needed to come out but nobody looked at me in the eye and told me what was going to happen," she said.

"The only pain relief I was given was a spray on my tongue. I was told it was meant to loosen my cervix but I was not given gas and air - I was in pain. I had the doctors putting their hands inside me and I had them pushing on my stomach and then pulling me down.

"I tried to get off the bed but they pulled me back three times and just said they had to get the baby out. They twice tried to cut my cervix and nobody told me they were going to do it. "There was no anaesthetic. I said to them 'it doesn't feel right, stop it, what's going on, I don't want to do it' but nobody responded to me in any way."

The woman wasn't told her baby had died until after the delivery, and she didn't learn the details of his death until much later.

Dr Vaishnavy Laxman was suspended after the March 2014 tragedy. Picture: Cavendish Press

"I would never use the word stillborn, he was not stillborn he was decapitated. I was pregnant, my first pregnancy - I wasn't sure what was going on and I was told it was the safest place possible," she told the tribunal.

"Nobody explained the plan or risks associated. It was like disorganised chaos and I was scared."

Lawyer for the General Medical Council Charles Garside QC told the tribunal a vaginal delivery was "the wrong choice" and that a category one caesarean section should have been performed.

"New babies are fragile, but this tiny baby was more fragile, and being pulled or twisted could do a lot more damage," he said.